Comments on: Tips & Tricks: I’m in love with %b – Useful AutoText Shortcuts

By: vincent mac

vincent mac — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:15:10 +0000

This is brilliant! Actually saving me from making an autotext for all the different variations of abbrevations connect to other words that I’ve been doing up until now. Awesome article, Ronen.

By: ShvartzBerry

ShvartzBerry — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:17:52 +0000

A long time ago I decided it was inconvenient to to type Alt+V to get a question mark. Not sure why – maybe it was the placement of the Alt button which takes more effort to get to. Maybe it was having to hunt down the ? So I discovered %b back then and then just programmed autotext to replace a lone “q” with “%b?”.

By: monkey

monkey — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:36:31 +0000

He is NOT typing %b !!!

By: Otis.

Otis. — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:38:20 +0000

Granted, this shortcut isn’t for everybody, and not to belabor the point, I’ll just add that, for me, it’s easier to hit the Space+j (etc.) than Alt+j. I type with my thumbs, and on my 8320 Curve, I have to bend my thumb inwards to hit the smaller Alt key, rather than extend it to hit the relatively large Space key.

So, again, it’s not for all, but if I have the choice, I’ll use Space instead of Alt every time.

By: Ronen Halevy

Ronen Halevy — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:10:33 +0000

This is not a shortcut for everybody but it opens up a easy door for different autotext entries. I use AutoText all the time and its a lifesaver! The more I can do with it then the faster I can respond. For example say you work in percentages every day. Instead of hitting sym and then the percentage key you could just set it to be the letter p. Same thing with brackets [ ]

By: John Salerno

John Salerno — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:56:14 +0000

While I agree that this usefulness of %b is limited for most of us, I just want to say that he isn’t actually typing “%b” in a message. He is using that shortcut within the AutoText itself, so that it happens behind the scenes.

By: John Salerno

John Salerno — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:55:03 +0000

Ah, I didn’t notice that the AutoText he used had an extra space in there.

By: javatyger

javatyger — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:53:58 +0000

No offense, but that’s got to be dumbest shortcut ever. Why would I type %b to get a backspace? I don’t get how this saves time whatsoever when I can just press the alt-k or alt-j for those things. Glad you found a use for this but seems a bit time consuming to go through all those steps when I can just press the alt key quickly.

By: Ronen Halevy

Ronen Halevy — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:48:57 +0000

John you have to hit the space anyways after a alt+b to continue the email so now it is just alt+b

By: John Salerno

John Salerno — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:38:03 +0000

I’m a little confused on how this saves time in some cases. If you define “b” as the exclamation mark, how are you saving any characters typed? Is pressing Space + b any better than Alt + b? Same with the semicolon, etc.